


slowly, we unfurl

by defcontwo



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Marriage of Convenience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-12
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 02:06:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2292941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When all else fails, Eames just blames it on the Detroit mob.</p>
            </blockquote>





	slowly, we unfurl

**Author's Note:**

> this is an old, old fic written way back in 2011 that I decided to clean up and update for ao3.

When all else fails, Eames just blames it on the Detroit mob. 

\+ 

It's in the early days of illegal dreamsharing, long before the lofty thrills of corporate espionage came into play. Mindheist is only beginning to feel its way into the criminal underworld and jobs are quick, dirty and pretty much always half-assed. Teams are made up of petty thieves scraping by with the skin of their teeth and former military recruits with chips on their shoulders. And Eames, well, he fancies himself as a bit of both.

Arthur is the latter all over, still with his standard buzz cut and a haunted look in his eye that will take years to fade away. They work together more often than not because no matter how much they drive each other insane, they understand one another. Learning how to kill each other in about a thousand different gruesome ways only to wake up to the peering, intrusive gazes of government scientists will do that to you. There is something to be said about being able to sit in silence with someone and know that you're both fucked up for the exact same reason. 

The job is to find out the time and location of the next drop for the mob's drug trafficking business and right from the start, Eames has a feeling that they should have turned this one down. It's never served him well in the past to ignore his gut instinct, not when it's gotten him out of so many scrapes. 

Not that Arthur would ever believe it to hear it but sometimes Eames really fucking hates being right. 

Arthur has a bullet in his stomach and there's blood everywhere, all over the backseat of the car that Eames stole to get them to the hospital. There is no way around it with this one, no easy fix to change the fact that Arthur bleed out and die and there goes the only person left in this godforsaken world that Eames can rely on. No family ties or old friends left to speak of; the military had seen to that. There is just Arthur with his condescension and his stupid American haircut and his great right hook. Eames would rather take a bullet to the knee than admit that he's come to care for the other man, that even though Arthur can be a royal pain in his arse, they’re friends, or at least something like it. 

The medics rush Arthur away on a stretcher and a harried looking nurse comes over to say that she'll be returning in about ten minutes to ask after Arthur's information. The ER waiting room is painted a depressing gray, filled with people that have nothing in common except the worry that lines their faces. They are ordinary people with ordinary problems, something Eames hasn’t had in years. He couldn't have felt more out of place with the gun tucked into the back of his jeans and the remnants of somnacin still running through his veins. He can rebuild Carthage if the mood strikes him, slip into the skin of another as easily as he slipped into his t-shirt, but it is only in moments like this when he realizes just how separated from reality his life truly is. 

Right now, the mob's best men will be looking out for every bullet wound case popping up in the Detroit area. Arthur's case will stand out from the car crashes and the minor sports injuries. Lackeys will be dispatched to finish the job they'd started and there is nothing that Eames can do to stop it while waiting in this miserable room. Arthur will die, Eames useless and unable to watch over him, because of something as mundane as hospital visitation rights. 

Eames looks down at his phone and thinks about all of the contacts that he has, all of the favors that he can cash in on. 

(It seemed like a good idea at the time). 

\+ 

Two weeks and four dead mobsters conveniently dumped into the hospital morgue later, Arthur is ready to be discharged from the hospital. His face isn't quite as pale as it was and and he only needs a little bit of help getting out of his wheelchair, and it's a sign of how close to death he was in the first place that Arthur would ask for help at all. Eames half expected expected Arthur to snap at the nurse for suggesting a wheelchair, not fall into it gratefully.

As Arthur gingerly settles himself into the front passenger seat of a different and infinitely less bloody stolen car, he turns to Eames and asks, "how did you manage to get them to let you stay in my room day and night?" 

Eames shrugs noncommittally, busying himself with putting the key in the ignition. "You have so little faith in my charming personality." 

There's no need for Arthur to know the truth. It's not like it's a big deal or anything. 

\+ 

Eames thinks maybe it’s time to rethink that stance just a bit when he opens up the front door to his Islington flat a year later, and finds himself on the floor within thirty seconds, a bruise already beginning to blossom on his jaw where Arthur punched him. 

"Tell me, Eames," Arthur says, as he kicks the door closed and steps over Eames's body. "Why is it that when I got shot in the shoulder in Seattle, the nurse at the hospital asked if they should contact my husband, a Mr. Rupert Eames?"

"I think the better question you should be asking yourself here is, why do I get shot so often?" Eames says, feigning nonchalance as he picks himself up from the floor and leans heavily against the closed door. It is no longer a given that they will be working jobs together. The illegal dreamsharing business keeps on growing and the demand for their expertise sends them spiraling outwards across the globe, often in opposite directions. The thought that Arthur was off getting shot without Eames around to save Arthur from his own single-mindedness puts a twist in Eames's gut. 

"Eames," Arthur says in that scary tone of voice that makes even the laziest of thieves snap to attention, settling down on one of the steps leading up to the kitchen and fixing Eames with a pointed glare. 

Eames sighs. "Yeah, all right. It was the Detroit job, when we had the mob after us. The best way to keep an eye on you would be if I had a legitimate reason to be there, so I called in a few favors and had a forged marriage license submitted to the Iowa State Registry." 

Arthur stares at him blankly, now seemingly less angry and more completely confused at Eames’s logic which, you know, in retrospect is a bit of a fair cop. "What, you couldn't have just lied and made something up on the spot about being my long lost cousin from England?"

The truth is, the thought hadn't even occurred to him. Maybe subconsciously, some part of him immediately rejected the idea of pretending to be related to someone that he thinks about naked way too often to be healthy. 

"I kept you alive, didn't I?"

"You had it submitted to the Iowa State Registry, Eames. Even if there was no ceremony, we might as well be married. Did you lose your fucking mind?" Arthur's voice goes slightly hysterical and squeaky towards the end and the pain in Eames's jaw is almost worth the rare chance to see Arthur completely lose his cool. 

Eames smiles in what he hopes is a winning manner and then winces because fucking hell, Arthur really does have a great right hook. "I might have done, yeah." 

"Can I ask why, out of all of the states, you chose Iowa?"

Throwing all notions of self-preservation out of the window, Eames says, "I know you like Star Trek." 

Arthur's face goes through a variety of expressions before settling once again upon murderous. "We are never going to speak of this again." 

Eames agrees because as much as he'd like to think he was immune, Arthur really is quite scary sometimes, and he doesn't fancy another punch to the jaw any time soon. "Never again, I promise." 

Arthur nods sharply and lifts himself up from the step. "If you have a Guinness with my name on it up in your fridge, I'll refrain from punching you again."

Eames waves Arthur ahead up towards the kitchen. "Lead the way, I need something cold for my jaw anyways. How many people have you punched since I saw you last? You hit harder than you used to." 

Arthur laughs and it's a better sign of forgiveness than anything else. 

\+ 

That promise doesn’t last quite as long as Arthur would’ve liked. 

It's been ages since they’ve last seen each other and this job finds Arthur looking less rough around the edges, and more pressed and professional. He looks lighter, happier, like he's slowly growing into his own and laying his demons to rest. The well-fitted pants and carefully chosen ties are a nice touch. 

They're in Paris and Arthur calls him in to meet a couple that he’s working with, a Dominick and Mallorie Cobb. The Cobbs are brilliant and sickeningly in love and just a little bit mad. They're idealistic academics dreaming for the sake of dreaming and pushing the limits of their own imaginations, but there's a dangerous edge to their work that makes Eames think that they might just be his kind of people. They aren't jaded and somehow, that’s more refreshing than it is irritating. 

The job is completely legal, a concept that’s still foreign after so much time spent navigating the back alleys of dreamshare. It’s all a bit too safe, unnervingly so, and lacks the urgency of his usual fare. Eames finds himself wondering how the high-minded Cobbs would adjust if they were thrown into the illegal side of things, if they were forced to get their hands dirty. He wonders just how much they know about what Arthur used to do, if they know what Arthur was like before he met them. A small, selfish part of Eames hopes that they know little of Arthur's past, if only to keep the memory of that rougher Arthur for himself. Their time apart has seen them grow in different directions and Eames likes the thought that he's still the person who knows Arthur best, no matter how much he's changed. 

Still, in many ways, Arthur is the same pain in the arse that he’s always been and it doesn't take them long to fall right back into old habits. 

Two weeks into their brainstorming sessions and Mal breaks into their conversation, her carefree laugh filling the room. "And here I thought Dom and I were bad. You two are like an old married couple." 

Eames smirks. "Well, Mal, it's funny that you should say that..."

Arthur throws a white board marker at his head. 

\+ 

The thing of it is, Eames never took the whole thing all that seriously. Sure, Arthur is attractive, has always been attractive to Eames in a harmless kind of way. He is wildly good-looking and it's not like Eames is blind. Add clever and ruthless with a semi-automatic on top of wildly good-looking, and it's no great mystery that Arthur has featured in a few of Eames's choice fantasies. Acting on those fantasies is a line that he will never cross because they are friends in their own dysfunctional way, and sex has a nasty habit of making things awkward. That his attraction to Arthur could run any deeper than that hadn't even occurred to him. 

The irony that someone who makes his living off of his keen insight of others could be so utterly clueless when it comes to his own feelings isn't lost on him. 

He's just gotten a call about a job in Brazil that's too interesting to pass up and it's the sort of tricky job that he would feel better having Arthur on his team for. Calling ahead to warn Arthur that he might be dropping by to break into Arthur's apartment in Bed-Stuy might have been the safer thing to do but this way is more fun. 

Eames jimmies open the lock and lets himself into the apartment. The lights are on in the foyer and the kitchen but there's no Arthur in sight, so Eames sets off towards the living room, calling out as he does so. 

"Arthur, darling, how's your Portuguese these days?" 

Of the many things that he could have imagined waiting for him in Arthur's living room, he certainly wouldn't have pictured Arthur fucking some hipster stranger into the carpet. 

"Uh, Arthur, who is this?" The unknown man asks. There is an ugly, dark something uncurling in Eames's gut and it is something like jealousy. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth, this unwanted jealousy. His friendship with Arthur is something he never wanted complicated. 

"David, I'm sorry, he's just - Eames, can't you just knock?" Arthur demands, red-faced, from either fury or embarrassment, Eames can't decide. 

"I was under the impression that I didn't have to. Does your charming friend here know that you're married?" 

"Woah." David pushes Arthur off of him and scrambles up to gather his clothes from where they're strewn all over the floor. "I don't want to get in the middle of some marital bullshit, that's not for me." 

"He's not my - what are you even doing here, Eames?" Arthur asks, and yes, that's definitely fury in his voice there. Arthur has shucked on his own trousers and he's standing there, arms crossed and demanding answers, but Eames can't get the image of Arthur with another man out of his mind. 

Eames opens his mouth and finds himself at a loss for words. "I have no idea." 

Eames strides out the front door of Arthur's apartment and slams it soundly shut. It isn't until he’s in front of the door to his own hotel room that it really hits Eames what just happened. He bangs his head against the solid wood a few times. 

"Well, Rupert, old chap. This might be your biggest cock-up yet." 

\+ 

Cobb speaks of inception with a lost look in his eyes and Eames knows that Cobb's just crazy and desperate enough to pull it off. He would be a fool to walk away from this, the chance to carve out yet another corner for himself in dreamsharing history. And so Eames chuckles lowly around Arthur's name, allowing mockery to curl itself around the underlying affection, as he accepts Cobb's offer. 

Cobb speaks of inception with a lost look in his eyes and Eames allows himself to think of possibilities, to think of Arthur, for the first time in three years. 

\+ 

Eames expects to be pulled aside, expects cold fury and a demand for answers, for the past three years of his life. He expects an acknowledgement, somehow, of what happened that day -- whatever it was, whatever Arthur thought it was. 

The reality is this: they fall right back into that old rhythm. They plan and bicker and pick at each other, and Arthur doesn't ask once where Eames disappeared to all those years ago. 

Late one night, Eames and Ariadne leave the warehouse together after spending hours ironing out the kinks in the third level. As they step out into the crisp night air and head towards the nearest bar to unwind, Ariadne turns a thoughtful gaze on Eames. "So, what is it with you and Arthur?" 

Eames huffs a laugh. "Why are you so keen on knowing everyone's business?" 

Ariadne shrugs. "I'm curious." 

"Well, my dear Ariadne, you know the popular saying on that," Eames says as he digs a packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, lighting one as they draw closer to the bar. 

Ariadne rolls her eyes at him as she swings open the door to the bar. "Cobb said you have some kind of history." 

"Oh, Cobb said?" Eames shakes his head and goes to order their drinks. The pair of them settle in at a quiet table in the back and Ariadne just stares and raises an eyebrow, a face full of expectations. She is a pint-sized menace who can hold more beer than her frame should allow and she's lucky that Eames likes her so much. The last person who asked after his relationship with Arthur earned themselves a shattered bottle of whisky. 

There's a chance that Yusuf will never going forgive him for that. 

Eames braces himself with a sip of his lager. "Arthur and I have all sorts of history. Mainly of the military variety." 

Ariadne nods thoughtfully. "Arthur mentioned something about the military to me, yeah. But you said all sorts of history. Was any of it personal?"

Ariadne says personal in a tone that makes it come out loaded, like she’s asking a different question entirely and expects him to get her meaning anyways. She knows exactly what she’s doing, she does, this girl who builds cities and creates mazes out of thin air. 

"No," Eames answers shortly. 

"You wanted it to be," Ariadne says, a statement, not a question. 

"You're an annoying child, you know," Eames says, putting out the butt of his cigarette and glaring balefully at Ariadne over the top of his pint. 

"You're not the first person to say it. I’m told it’s one of my better qualities,” Ariadne says, lifting her drink in a mock salute, and there’s a twinkle in her eye that says she’s used to being too much for people and refuses to change, anyways. 

Eames clears his throat. “Since you’re so curious about everyone’s lives, let me tell you about the time I made Yusuf cry.”

Ariadne rolls her eyes at his clumsy attempt to change the subject but nods and lets it go, allowing Eames to spend the remainder of the night regaling her with increasingly fantastical stories.

Eames tries to ignore it but Ariadne's words spark a question that he can’t stop himself from asking time after time after time. He becomes hyper-aware in the final stages of planning, snagging onto the details of every interaction, trying to parse out the pathways between them that are bright enough that a relative stranger picked them out with such relative ease. 

Arthur gets his own back for the kicked chair and the mocking laughter with forgotten coffee orders and never-ending stacks of paperwork but New York, still Arthur says nothing. The heist falls into place around them and there are forces far greater than themselves at work, here. 

\+ 

Down the rabbit hole they fall and in their wonderland, there is nothing but chaos. 

He calls Arthur 'darling' and means it. 

Arthur looks at him and there is something new in that gaze, something that he's never seen there before, but there's no time to pause, no time to do anything but tumble deeper and deeper downwards and pray to whatever deity that this crazy fucking plan actually works. 

_Go to sleep, Mr. Eames._

\+ 

They've changed the world but no one’s noticed the difference just yet. Thousands of travelers mill around him, oblivious to what’s taken place. The rest of the team will have their own stories, Eames knows, but there is one moment that will always rise above the rest in his memory. Fisher opening the safe and everything locking into place, all of that madness coalescing into that one perfect moment, and Eames standing there with a front row seat to it all. 

It might be better than the best sex he's ever had. 

At LAX, they are six strangers going their separate ways. Ariadne smiles at him in the taxi line and he has no doubt that he'll be seeing her again soon, the clever minx that she is. 

During the cab ride to his hotel, Eames's mind inevitably drifts unbidden to Arthur. The years have seen them fall out of each other's orbit, at first by accident and later deliberately after that embarrassing day in New York. But still there is this niggling feeling that remains of things unfinished, of what could be if only they stopped long enough to sort themselves out. He knows now that there is a "we" there, that there has always been too much between them for it to ever have been one-sided. But it was Eames who stormed out of that Bed-Stuy apartment, exposing something he hadn't even known he had to expose. It’s Arthur’s move to make. 

When Arthur steps into the elevator of the hotel after him, luggage slung over his shoulder, Eames can't even pretend to be surprised.

Arthur presses the button for his floor and then shifts slightly, looking like he has something to say but has no idea how to go about saying it. "Eames. I'm, uh. I'm sorry about New York."

Eames directs his gaze towards the ascending red numbers over the elevator doors. "What do you have to be sorry for?" 

He can feel Arthur rolling his eyes before Eames hears the pressing of a button and the elevator comes to a standstill. Arthur pulls at Eames's arm, forcing Eames to face him. 

"You know what. I didn't know. I had never thought about it - not until after. This may come as a surprise to you but I'm not quite as together as I'd like people to believe." Arthur smiles wryly but there is an unpleasant twist to it that speaks of regret. 

"Yeah, well, neither had I." Eames blows out a breath. "I don't know what you want me to say." 

Arthur looks nervous and weary and completely out of his depth, with bags under his eyes, and his waistcoat wrinkled and unbuttoned. Arthur’s perfectly knotted tie is coming undone and Eames is completely charmed by it all. Eames had often thought, in those years away, that there would come a day where he would look at Arthur and not know him at all, where he would feel nothing. He’s come to realize that there will never be such a day. 

“I’m going to be completely terrible at this, you know,” Arthur says. 

"Oh, I know. So will I." Eames pulls Arthur closer by his slowly loosening tie. “What do you say, darling, want to give it a try anyways?”

Arthur laughs softly, letting himself get reeled in. "I guess so. We're already married, after all. The divorce rate is high enough, we might as well try to make this work."


End file.
